“USD/JPY, which fell particularly hard today should test 112.40 pre-FOMC but a move below that level may not happen until after the rate decision…. The economy is not doing as poorly as what is reflected by stocks and rate hike expectations…. Barring significant dovishness, any pullback in USD/JPY could be short-lived. Other currency pairs like EUR/USD and GBP/USD are a different story.”

“The Fed has been able to slowly and predictably raise interest rates this year because the economy has performed largely in line with its expectations, but Wednesday’s minutes show how trade uncertainties loom large for U.S. businesses and Fed officials.”

“For the world of institutional investing, the topic of our time is none other than fees.” Most of the solutions being touted, such as 1-or-30, are anything but revolutionary. “Any magic is really just sleight-of-hand meant to distract us from realizing how low our expectations are for any meaningful improvement in the existing misaligned fee structures.” We must overcome this built-in bias and “expand the window of possible choices to include those that will be seen as utterly unthinkable by today’s standards.” For example, a “rent” system could be adopted in which “the allocator no longer pays fees to the manager for the use of its own capital and is assured of receiving the investment outcome it seeks (i.e., the negotiated rent). The manager gets the capital and potential revenue it needs to run its business.” Such a revolutionary move would place the risk directly where it belongs: on the asset manager.

“Watching the slow-motion crash of Britain’s exit negotiations with the European Union is a disconcerting experience. A state that once ran a global empire is looking second-rate.” Realism has all but been abandoned. “The government’s implausible expectations about what it may be able to achieve” reveal a “dismaying lack of historical and strategic understanding about how Britain lost its clout outside the European club more than half a century ago.”

Replacing Jeff Immelt at GE’s helm, new CEO John Flannery will need “to deal with GE’s soggy financial performance. Trian, an activist hedge fund, owns a stake in GE and, behind the scenes, has probably been agitating for change. Unless the numbers improve soon, pressure may mount for GE to break itself up. That would be a bad idea: what it now needs is less re-engineering and more consistent execution. At least Mr Flannery, unlike Mr Immelt, takes the helm when expectations are low.”

“China’s yuan policy has blindsided forecasters once again. The sudden surge in the last four days — for the onshore exchange rate, it’s been the steepest gain in more than four months — pushed the currency beyond levels predicted by even the most optimistic analysts.” At least eight analysts rushing to change their estimates. This is not the first time they have been caught flat footed. “Market watchers were caught off guard earlier in the year as well, when the yuan confounded expectations by strengthening in the first quarter.”

More needs to be done on fiscal and monetary co-operation. “The past few weeks have highlighted the limits of monetary policy expansion. The current framework combining quantitative easing and negative interest rates is offering rapidly diminishing returns because it is not producing the large, permanent increase in the money in circulation that would be required to turn inflation expectations around and lift the world economy out of deflationary deadlock.”

“The drama never ends for Argentina, land of failed expectations and the setting for a great Broadway musical. Next week, a new leading man steps into the role of president with a chance to fix the broken economy and set a positive example for South American democracy.”

“For the average Japanese investor and consumer, inflation expectations have not budged. Japan needs to jump-start a wage-price spiral of the sort feared from the 1970s…. Such a cycle should be started by increasing nominal wages by 5 to 10 per cent in 2016.”